Away We Go
Away We Go is the sixth song on the 2013 album The Afterman: Descension. Lyrics She is her own worst enemy Her heart a landmine calamity Waiting for someone to set her off Morse code a clicking out an SOS Life raft releasing her last breath Tonight she's going to drown Without me, will she reach the great beyond? Believe me, take my word, I'll never break your heart... And away we go My little Jersey girl If we could escape this innocence Trapped between the fears and the words we kept We'll live out our later years Here in our dreams, we'll reach a great beyond. Believe me, take my word, I'll never break your heart... And away we go Sinking in this beautiful undertow, together with you We're giving up You can leave what little we believe Our flaw, discard, come give me what I need My thoughts won't go away, you are my holiday Together we'll receive and reach that great beyond Believe me, take my word, I'll never break your heart... And away we go My little Jersey girl Inspiration "This track is a reflection of when my wife and I met and the events that ensued. This was before text messages and Skype, so, after meeting once, we spent months talking on the phone and emailing while I was touring and overseas. Our first actual “date” was in Asbury Park, NJ, where she and a friend drove 17 hours so we could see eachother. I'll confess to you now that I actually cancelled a show we had at the time so that she and I could have another day together; telling our booking agent at the time that I was sick—When he saw us having breakfast at a diner, he knew. It was a childish move, yes, but things happen for a reason. This is a pure, honest love song about all the places we've gone and all that we have left to go." Story Many believe that just before you die, as the body flips between unconsciousness and cognizance, there is a profound experience. It can be described like oil and vinegar, or oil and vinegar and a million other ingredients, standing perfectly well on their own, each able to hold up their structure despite coexisting in one container together. If the body is like a container, the ingredients are ideas, abstractions like dreams, schemas of the afterlife, memories from the best and worst days we lived, repetition that has engrained itself into our perception; shapes, sequences, feelings, choices, jingles we learned in school to memorize something important. There are the things we cannot remember consciously and the things we spend a lifetime trying to forget. In our final moments, perhaps it's as if the container is suddenly shaken up, taking all of our individual reveries and forcing them together, until what we believed to only make sense as separate, compartmentalized thoughts now seem incredibly clear as a single, fluid experience. For Meri Amory, this moment occurs from a gurney, where Dr. Straight and his team of specialists are doing everything they can to pull her from the grip of death. To her, the doctors are faceless white apparitions moving around a room that has metamorphosed into a collage of landscapes, events and ruminations. She views the space around her with newborn eyes. She is walking across a bridge, high above the trees. There are elaborate gazebos with pillars and columns hidden within them. She walks without a purpose, breathing in air so pure she believes she must be the first person to ever have breathed it. Slowly, swirling in like a plastic bag caught up in a gust of wind, a sphere of light approaches, rings of color radiating and growing until the center is stretched so far it opens wide, leaving a hole of nothingness there. From the void, a small balcony draws out like an ellipse, a living gateway appearing there; a cloak extending forth a transparent figure from within that beckons to her, guides her. Meri continues to move down the path presented by the figure, knowing exactly where to go, despite never having been here before... she feels at ease... she's going home... Then Meri is at the beach and she has definitely been here. Planet Hetricus. The Jersey City dunes. She's much younger and she's walking to meet a boy she's only met once before. Her pulse quickens, anticipating the encounter as she moves toward a rickety dock, completely overdressed for the midday heat. She can hear the trapped drum of her heart amidst the crash and slush of the waves. It's as if she might reach out and touch all the possibilities, all the promise this moment holds. He sees her first. From then on, he'd constantly remind her that's how it happened. "I watched you come over that little wooden dock and we may as well have walked down the aisle then and there," he'd say. Eventually she would grow to question whether he'd changed his mind. But, not now. Now is pure magic for a girl and a young scientist finding out for the first time that not everything can be explained away with a little logic. Finally, she sees him. He is love personified. There are no awkward words exchanged. There are no words at all yet, but an embrace held long enough to convey the feelings of two people glad to see each other, happy to no longer be apart. In this case, people who have been kept apart their entire lives and are only now realizing how much they've missed the other. "It's nice to see you again, Sirius," she says. The boy opens his mouth to agree. Meri knows what he will say. She's thought of this moment over and over for the better half of her adult life. But rather than words, a warm glow begins to emit from Sirius' mouth, as if he's breathing light around her, surrounding and comforting her. Now the waves have stopped where they rise, flattening out into a vastness that could go on forever, familiar likenesses and places developing in the transparency of the liquid. Through the afterglow enveloping her, Meri watches as Sirius closes his eyes and disappears; the landscape reworking itself into an intricate labyrinth, massive doors opened in front of her. She, like those before her, will traverse this place indefinitely, into the world of the unknown, until the new becomes the monochromatic plane where wayward souls reside before they transcend... if they ever do. With certainty and contentment she looks ahead, taking the first step into the maze. Away we go. Category:The Afterman: Descension Category:Songs